


After the Bible burst into flames...

by IraBragi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Cannon - what cannon?, F/M, Family Don't End in Blood, Finding love and healing, Fix-it for Jesse Turner, I swear its not as dark as it sounds, Nephilim, Talk of Suicide, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:39:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10764447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IraBragi/pseuds/IraBragi
Summary: Kelly Kline was running - running away from the people who wanted to hurt her and her child and running out of time.  The man at her door had kind eyes.





	After the Bible burst into flames...

**Author's Note:**

> So an explanation for what this story/AU is: When the nephilim arc began I saw a post on Tumblr (and I really wish I could remember who posted it but I have not been able to dig it back up, if I ever do I’ll tag them) that was a short ficlit playing with the idea of what could happen if Jesse Turner (the demon-human and potential antichrist from season 5) met up with Kelly Kline while she was carrying the nephilim. I’ve always loved Jesse and thought it was a horrible waste how the show just forgot about him. As you can see my mind took the idea and ran with it. 
> 
> About Jesse’s age in this fic: So in show years Jesse would only be about 14 years old by the nephilim arc but in my story he is already an adult. I'm hand waving this by saying that between his powers making time move oddly for him and the fact that he spent a while with Chuck, he is older than chronological time would allow. He appears as a world-weary late 20’s in this story (and I have Kelly at around 30 years old.)

After the Bible burst into flames I ran.  Literally.  I dropped the now-charred pages and ran – out of my apartment, down the steps, past Mr. Peters from next door sweeping his steps, down the street.  When I saw the black van two blocks behind me, I ducked into a doorway breathing hard and waited for it to pass, then started jogging in the opposite direction.

I had no idea who they were or what they wanted but deep in my bones I knew two things: first, the baby I carry is not the child of President Jefferson Rooney (who or what the father is I  won’t let myself think about.  If I do I knew that I would curl into a sobbing ball and never get back up) and two, if I didn’t run /right now/ very, very bad things were going to happen to me and my daughter (and somehow when I placed my hand against my still-flat stomach I knew it was a daughter.)

That night when I finally drifted into a fitful sleep, lying on a lumpy hotel mattress, I dream.  I was running down a dark hallway, (running, and running, and running) and just as my lungs began to give out I see the small child.  A little girl in the dark, she is wearing a nightgown and pink bunny slippers.  I call out to the child and she turns around.  

“Oh God” The words stick in my throat - the child’s hands and face are covered in blood.  My dream self walks forward.

“Oh God” this time is was a scream. The girl is eating a lump of flesh – no it was a heart, still beating – she digs her teeth into the organ, drinking the spurting blood.  

The blood is rising now, flowing towards me.  I run but it covers me now, lapping at my ankles then rising to my thighs.  My screams are ragged and uneven.  The blood is soaking the bed now, it’s going to drown me.  I scream until my throat is raw, until I am panting for breath and choking on blood.  Then suddenly I am back in bed and the blankets are the same off white they were when I crawled into the bed.  Someone down the hall is shouting, “Someone shut that bitch up!”  I hold the blanket in shaking hands, it stays dirty white.  I try to remember how to breathe and don’t sleep again that night.

\------

Looking at myself in the truck stop bathroom mirror I wonder if everyone can see the craziness in me at a glance too (that I’m crazy I have accepted as a sad but undeniable fact) I certainly look the part.   My hair is matted and short.  I dyed it black then chopped it at strange angles three weeks ago as a desperate attempt at disguise.  That was after the man with a pickup truck and a rifle kicked down my motel room door three states ago.  I shimmied out the bathroom window and his curses had a southern twang to them.  He shouted that I am carrying an abomination and he’d fix me.

My coat is pea green, so old even the nice lady at Salvation Army store had given up hope of selling it so she gave it to me for free (either that or she saw a soul in need, who knows.)  The woman offered to pray for me but I shook my head, and almost ran out of the shop.  I felt like a jerk but if Bibles burst into flame around me what might happen to this kind lady if she prayed?  I didn’t want one more thing on my conscious.  It was bad enough that I was discovering a real talent for petty larceny (drugstore food) and pickpocketing (money for motels.)  That night the little girl in my dream had wings of fire and blood.  “I love you mommy!  Do you love me mommy?  Will you play with me?”  

I had purchased a hunting knife and a bottle of whisky the next morning (I emptied my bank accounts back in DC, got all the cash I could, and sewed it into the lining of my coat.  When I got the pea green jacket I transferred everything that was left to the inner breast pocket.  By then it wasn’t much.)

Precious money went to get a train ticket.  I didn’t care where.  After that a trucker gave me a ride.  Then a nice family who thought I was a stranded college student.  I kept moving, the knife in my bag always in the back of my mind.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been on the road when I finally snapped.  People were starting to notice that I’m carrying so  it’s been maybe three or four months I think.  I’m not even sure how I’ve gotten this far, it all seems like a dream.  Endless miles and small kindnesses from strangers - all propelled by some animal part of my brain that knows that it needs to keep running.  But even animals get tired and you only run if you are more scared of what’s chasing you than what’s in front of you.

So four months after it all started, sitting in a motel room that probably had mold and definitely had bugs, waking up choking from one more nightmare (I had stopped screaming months ago) I realized that I couldn’t do this anymore.  It wasn’t fear or even exhaustion, I just knew that I didn’t want to wake up the next morning and face one more day of running.  

The whiskey burned (too little sleep, no food) and the lights flicker on wall.  Three more gulps of fire and I pick up the knife.  I run the tip down my arm, drawing blood.  I figure it was enough to do the job.  I considered the blade - I have a choice to make.  On the one hand I could probably just slit my throat and be done with it – it would hurt but it would be quick.  But then I think of the dreams, the little girl covered in blood – what if it didn’t die with me?  What if?  I lower the blade to my stomach, only just beginning to curve, and mutter a half-prayer, “God have mercy.”

Strangely it wasn’t for mercy for myself that I prayed but for the little one inside – my daughter.  I lower the blade again then jump when someone knocks at the door.  Far too exhausted to run I stand, “I’m coming” I slur, stumbling to the door “you got a gun? You can help me make it quick.”

He is young, that’s what I notice first when I open the door.  He had the shaggy hair and lanky build of a man who wasn’t quite done being a boy.  I step back and try to focus on his face.  “What you waiting for?”  I brandish the knife, “Don’t you know I’m dangerous?” (That’s what they’d said on the news.  An old photo of me and a plea for people to be on the lookout for a “mentally unstable woman who had escaped psychiatric custody.”  I am “a danger to herself and others” and the beautifully put together news anchor appealed to the community to “call 911 if you see this woman.”)

His eyes are kind I think, and he keeps twisting his hands together as if he is nervous.  “I can help you” he blurtes out.  “Only if you want, but…” he trails off, focuses on the window for a moment – listening, “there are bad things coming, the men, they want to hurt you.  I can help you.  You and her both.”  He nods to my stomach.  Reflexively I place a hand over my middle, the same hand still holding the knife.

His eyes are big and brown, they feel like the first solid thing I have touched since I started running.  “Please, I’m sorry we don’t have more time.  I swear I only want to help you but it’s your choice. Will you trust me?”  Well he isn’t an agent that’s for sure, I think.  What the hell! I look him in the eye and nod.  “I’m Jesse” he says.    

There is a shout and the sound of a car screeching.  He reaches out his hand and I grab it.  One moment we are in the motel and the next moment we aren’t.  I shake my head, trying to make my brain process whatever it is that just happened.  We are standing in a clearing next to a cabin.  There is a creek to our left and a bed of flowers planted along one wall of the house.  Smoke curls up from the chimney and the door is painted blue.  It looks like something from one of the books my mother used to read to me.  I look over at Jesse, his eyes are still solid and kind, and touch my belly – perhaps someone heard my prayer after all.

“My name’s Kelly.  Could you please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Chapter 2

Several hours later I am tucked into bed (there is only one bed in the cabin, Jesse had mumbled something about a shed and disappeared out the back door.)  My body is exhausted but I feel more awake than I have in in years.  

We had walked into the cabin together (“what if he is a serial killer?” had flashed through my head, then I laughed at myself.  I’m pretty sure that we were beyond that worry by now.)  Jesse made me tea (real tea with loose leaves and honey) and then we talked.  Jesse explained that the world as most people know it is only a small fraction of the truth.

“You know the stories they tell you as a kid?  Ghosts, and angels, and God?” I nod, “They are all true – well” (he looked amused for a second) “not totally, I’ve never met a genie who would grant wishes, usually they just want to mess with you.  But anyway – our monster myths are real, and God, and everything else.”

“Then why don’t we know?  Where are angels when we need them?”  A sudden thought occurred to me, “are you an angel Jesse?”  He looked down at his cup.  Where those tears in his eyes?

“No Kelly, I’m no angel.” He stared at me, tears and fierce determination written on his face (god, why had I ever thought he was young? He looks older than the earth itself.)  “What they won’t tell you Kelly is that the angels will kill you and sometimes the demons will spare your life.  They don’t tell you that humans murder “monster” children for simply existing (I think of the man in a pickup truck) and that God has abandoned us more times than we can count.  The world is killing itself slowly and just because there is heaven above us and hell beneath does not mean that there is any justice between.”  He took a deep breath, steeling himself, “I’m not an angel, I’m an antichrist.”

“A what? I though the antichrist meant the end times and stuff?”  (I spare a thought to wonder when having tea with supposedly the most evil being in the Christian religion became unsurprising.)

“Not THE antichrist, AN antichrist.  There can be many, but as far as I know I’m the only one right now.  A demon raped my mother, she was human.  That’s what I am.  If I chose I can control reality to conform to my beliefs.  I am arguably as powerful as god, and I know I could kill him if I chose.  Your daughter?  She is a Nephilim.  Do you want to know who her father is?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question.  He pauses and looks at me.  I think about it.  I consider just leaving.  Antichrist or not I know he would let me go.  I could… I could what exactly?  I had been on the verge of killing my baby and myself earlier that night.  I have no home, no money, and clearly the things after me are far more powerful than mere men.  What exactly do I want?  

I press my hands to the tops of my thighs and breathed deeply.  Ever since… whatever it was, had touched me I have been running blind.  The plaything of powers that apparently are very real and very much involved in my life.  What I wanted was the truth, cold and hard.  I want to understand, and then… I look down, then I would decide if my daughter would be born or not.

“Tell me.”

“Lucifer.”

“The demon?  So she is like you?”

“No.  Lucifer created the demons.  He hates them actually.  They are his opposite.  Lucifer is an angel.”

A fallen angel.  I remember my grandmother’s Bible stories, how angels were creatures of light but if they chose to take a human form… “oh god” I run to the door, barely making it before I am sick.  After I’m done emptying my stomach I turn and look him in the eye, “What can she do?”

“I’m not totally sure” He paused, seems to weigh his words then continues, “but I suspect that her powers will mirror mine.  I create a world as I understand it.  Change things to fit my worldview.  Your daughter well… before they were called nephilim her kind were simply called “the speakers of names.”  

I must look as confused as I feel because Jesse hurries to clarify.  “If I can create she will know.  She will see the world as it truly is.”  He is quiet for a moment letting me grasp the information then added, “there are many prophecies and foretellings.  Half of them are crap and the other half are straight up lies but there is one text that speaks of a “bastard demon and a child of hate” who will remake the world in their hearts.”  He looks me straight in the eyes, “I never believed it until I felt the world shift and I knew your daughter had been created.”

I raise my hands, backing away.  Fear gripping me and turning my insides into ice.  Does everyone know more about my life than I do?  What chance do I have if strangers know more about my child than I do?  If my daughter is /destined/ for some, some world-altering thing.  Misinterpreting my panic as fear of him Jesse bowed his head.  

“I don’t want to hurt you, I swear.  I don’t want to…”  He trails off, “I didn’t ask to be born.”  It was something an angry teenager would say but on his lips is it sounds like a sob.  “I’ve tried so hard to understand the world, I’ve fought to not use my abilities.  I know what it’s like, to be born cursed, to be evil just by existing.  I just… I wanted to help - to help both of you.”

In another life, before this, I had made a living by reading people.  In Washington you either learn the skill fast or you sink, and I learned fast.  I knew how to look at a senator and know what it would take to make him change his vote.  I had looked the most powerful man in the free world in the eye and known how to read his desires.  I understood power, and hate, and how many people walked through their lives with no idea how much went on behind the curtain without their knowledge.  I think back to my college days in the Peace Corps, to the refugee children that my team brought medical supplies to.  Power.  Good.  Evil…. Love.  

I touch my belly, my daughter.  I had always said that I wanted to change the world.  Perhaps I won't change the world but I have to believe that I could love one child.  Jesse, who by all rights should be some kind of evil tyrant, but who stands next to me with his head bowed was proof that it could be done.

“Child of hate” what does that mean?” Jesse considers for a moment, “It says that she will be born “between such awful love and beautiful hate.”  Lucifer, he was abandoned by God and he has nurtured that resentment for eons now.  Your daughter is the next step in some grand plan of his to get back at his father.  What the plan is, I don’t know though.”

“And you?  The “bastard demon?” did he make you for this plan too?”

Jesse laughs sadly, “No, I doubt he even knows that I exist.  I’m the defective son of a dead demon.  An accident that should have been killed long ago.  If she and I are part of any grand plan it’s not one that Lucifer has cooked up.  All he wants is revenge and power, preferably in that order.”

I touch him then, my hand on his shoulder, “Does it say how you will change the world?”

He looks confused, “No.  It can’t be good though.  Even well-meaning dictators don’t stay that way for long.”

“It didn’t say dictator, it said change.  There is so much I still don’t understand but I think that you have been fighting for a very long time to do something good and I don’t know what my daughter is going to be like, maybe I’m unleashing some unspeakable horror on the world, but I refuse to believe that anybody is born evil.  So I’m going to raise her and maybe she will change the world, reshape it, but she is my daughter and she is going to be loved.”

Chapter 3

The dream was the worst one yet; blood and fire, death and decay.  She sat in the middle of it laughing.  I wanted to run, the feeling of /wrongness/ tying my guts into knots, but I stood firm.  I’d had enough of this, “Little one, can you hear me?”  She did not respond.  “Can you hear me?”  She turned to me then, “I chose you, you are mine, please don’t be like this.”  I don’t know what I expected.  I guess I hoped that the dream girl would turn into a not-flesh-eating-monster and light would appear and all would be well.  It was a naïve hope.  Her face morphed into something inhuman and she roared.  I ran.  I woke up screaming and sobbing, reaching for my knife.  Dimly I wondered when the thought of suicide had become a comforting one.

Before I could scream again Jesse was at my side.  He didn’t bother to ask if I was ok.  He just held me.  His arms wrapped around my shoulders and his chest solid against me.  After a time I pulled away and he passed me a tissue.

“This happen a lot?”  

I told him everything.  Then I told him the fear I hadn’t even let myself put into words, “Is this who she is?”

He listened quietly then shook his head, “I don’t think so.  This is one of Lucifer’s favorite games.  I’ve seen him break strong men with it.  Usually he’s trying to convince someone to become his vessel but in your case I think he just plain wants to hurt you, make you crazy.  Maybe even make you hate her.  I doubt it’s in his plan for you to give his pawn (he grimaces at the words) a nice white picket fence upbringing.”

“So glad to be special” I joked weakly.  

“There is something I should have done when you first got here but I have so much warding on this house I hoped I wouldn’t need to.”  He explained that there are symbols of power that can protect against different creatures.  They can bind, expel, or hide.  They exist for angels, demons - just about anything.  He knew how to ward a person, permanently,

“Chuck taught me, it’s a set that will hide you from angels, demons, their emissaries, and most witchcraft.  Basically unless they happen to see you with their physical eyes and recognize you, you're invisible.  They can’t scry you, summon you, or bind you.  I’ve also thrown in anti-possession and a couple of others I found over the years.”

“Putting aside the fact that apparently every two-bit novel about magic is real, how is this warding applied?  Sex under a black moon?  Or blood oath and sacrifice?”  I was getting way too much amusement out of making my new friend turn red.

“I, um just touch you.  Not like that! (more blushing and staring at his toes) Your hand, and then the symbols etch into your ribs.  It’s painless.  I can put it on you now and the baby when she’s born.”

“Ok.”  I place my hand on his.

“What?”  He seemed to be expecting more objections.

“I said ok.  I trust you.  And God knows I want these dreams to stop.”

“Chuck”

“Hu? Who?”

“Chuck.  That’s God’s name.  He’s… interesting.  He looked out for me for a bit after Death told him to…”  Jesse trailed off again.  Putting aside so many things about that revelation that begged further questions, I got back to the issue at hand,

“Ok can you do the mojo thing?  I’d really like for evil asshole guy to stop messing with my dreams.”  Jesse took my hand and closed his eyes.  I felt… it was like cool water rushing over me and then there was peace.  Just blissful peace.  It was like walking out of a building into the blinding light.  You never noticed that it was dark inside until you were surrounded by light.  I wondered how much about the last few months had been affected by whatever had been in my head.

I opened my eyes to find Jesse looking at me with worry.  I realized that I was laughing.  This was crazy, everything was upside down and the world might be ending but dam did I feel good!  I try to control my mirth and very seriously told him “Thank you Jesse.  I think that really helped” then burst back into giggles.  He was still looking at me warily but just suggested that I could try sleeping again.  That night I slept like the dead.  

\------

The next morning I woke up late and a quick search of the cabin found no Jesse and a note on the table:

Kelly,

I’ll be out be out for a bit.  I left breakfast in the fridge and there is more food in the kitchen.  Obviously you are free to leave if you want (I think I told you that last night I but I wanted to repeat it.  Also there is a car in the shed) but you are also welcome to stay.  

There are some books about all this supernatural stuff if you want to learn more.

J

Next to the note was a map with a neat “you are here” and arrow plus a dotted line that marked the way to the nearest road and a pair of keys.  My lips quark in a moment of amusement, if he’s a serial killer he’s the nicest one I’ve ever met.

I looked at the keys for a moment then slipped them into my pocket and walked to refrigerator.  There was milk and a plate of scrambled eggs with some bacon as well as a dozen bagels in a bag (who puts bread in the fridge?)  I shook my head and picked up the food.

As I ate I mused on whether all this was actually real or not.  Jesse said that he could create things.  I wasn’t sure what that that meant but this whole place seemed almost enchanted so who knew?  After I ate and put my dishes into the sink I walked into the middle of the room and surveyed the cabin, trying to get a feel for it - and by extension it’s owner.

The bulk of the cabin was one was one large space that had been split into two by furniture.  The kitchen side had a refrigerator, stove, and sink as well as the door to the bathroom.  There was the large table where we had sat last night and colorful braided rug on the floor.  The other side of the room was a mess of bookshelves and paper.  Along the far wall there was a fire place and the bed I had slept in was next to that.  The books (many of which looked to be old and/or not in English) were everywhere.  On the floor, on the shelves, under the bed, propped up on the window sill.  I moved to the bed and picked up the first book I could reach.  “The Prophecies of Monsters – Vampires, and Weir in Prophetic Text”  I touched my belly lightly, “Well little one I guess It’s time to figure out what the hell is going on.  How’s for some light reading?”

\-------

I had always loved books.  When I was little my mother read to me.  When I got a little older we would pick out a book together before she and dad were about to leave on one of their trips.  We would read the first chapters together and then she would hand it to me.  “Tell me how it ends when I come home?” She would ask.  And I would.  The night after they came back we would make hot chocolate and I would tell her the end of the story.  Dad would peek into the kitchen and mom would turn to me and with a conspiratorial wink ask, “Should we let him in?” and I’d laugh and dad would bargain, “I’ll make you girls grilled cheese.”  So we would sit, sipping hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches and I’d tell the stories that I’d read.  Little House on the Prairie, Johnny Tremaine, Beowulf.  I knew, even back then, that words were a kind of magic.  They could let you see the world through someone else’s’ eyes, they could let you have grand adventures, they could let you feel safe even when you were a very little girl whose bedroom was very, very dark.

Later, after… after, I discovered that words could have a different kind of magic in them.  At my private prep school and then at Jamestown I learned that words could be used to understand and to make change.  I was hungry to learn and quick to believe that my words could have some effect of the world.  I let my words carry me far away from the college campus (where everything was neat and clear) and my grandmother’s Boston brownstone (where we still made hot chocolate together even if it never tasted as good as mom’s had) all the way to a refugee camp on the other side of the world… 

I shook myself and tried to work the knots out of my back.  It must be almost dinner time.  Throughout the day I had moved only from the bed to the floor and back.  Thankful now for my college professor who made us learn how to sort through a library rather than use the internet, I had gone to town - gathering, evaluating, and organizing the mess of information that was in front of me.  

It was truly a daunting task.  There was everything from modern novels (that seemed to be a love story about some brothers?  I didn’t really want to know) to old maps, to ancient texts.  A lot of it was fringe sounding theories that a few months ago I would have dismissed along with a History channel special on aliens (oh darn! Are there aliens too?  I’d have to ask later.)  There were hand written journals on everything from the correct way to kill a kitsune to how to break an apocalyptic seal (If I was reading that correctly the apocalypse may have already happened?)  

I hadn’t even scratched the surface of all the information but already a clear pattern was emerging:  What we are afraid of we turn into stories.  We hope that, just like children in the dark, if we can name our fears they will stay away.  And just like when we are children, we learn that hiding under the bed doesn’t stop bad, bad things from happening.  

I had so many questions for Jesse but first I needed to eat.  I found ingredients for spaghetti and fixed enough for two.  As I was cooking he appeared walking toward the cabin (had he teleported in again?)  He looked tired or angry and quickly took one of his books from where I had put it (in a neat pile with all the other “summoning and banishing how-to” works) and began to walk back to the door.

“Do you want some dinner?”  He actually startled and stood looking between me and the food like it was a complex algebra equation.  “Food.  I made some.  Do you want any?”

“Thank you.”  He says it formally, then adds, “can I help you?” a bit uncertainly.  I shake my head and we sit down.  I wonder if he’s going to say grace (he had indicated that he had first hand knowledge of god yesterday so I figured it was 50/50) when he didn’t I bowed my head and repeated the prayer my grandma had always used, “for those who made it, and He who blesses it, thank you and may we always be filled.”  

“Amen” Jesse adds and then we eat in silence.  After dinner there is another awkward pause,

“Do you…”

“Would you like…”  We both start then stop and wait for the other to go on.  After a long moment I continue, “I hope it’s alright that I started sorting through your research.  I need to understand what’s happening.”  

“I could help you if you wanted.”  He answers.  “I have things I need to go do sometimes but I can answer questions and stuff when I’m here.”  He has the almost-hopeful look of a kid who is trying to make friends and doesn’t quite know how.  

“I’d like that.  Do you want to see how I’ve started arranging things?  Maybe you could show me some good places to start?”  He nods and gets up walking across that room.

It turns out that we work well together.  He sorts through my piles and helps put the information into the bigger context.

“That book is only here for reference, most of it’s dead wrong.”  Or, “that one might have some good information about angels.”  We worked side by side for a couple of hours, both reading separate books and him answering questions as they come up.  

After a while I asked, “Where were you today?”  he looks at me with the same “trying to figure out an algebra problem” look as before.

“I was helping… a friend.”  

“That’s nice.”  I reply, his tone doesn’t seem it went well.

“He…” Jesse pauses, then continues, “He’s trying to find the man who killed his mother.  I’m trying to convince him that he needs to move on.  That he will get himself killed.  He wants me to use my… abilities to help him and I told him I wouldn’t.  We fought.”

“Why can’t he go to the police?”  I have an inkling but I want to be sure.

“She, he – they – are both not-human.  A hunter found them after his mother killed to keep them alive.”  Jessie presses his hands to his eyes, “I sometimes wonder if anything is right or fair in this world.  They killed to stay alive, the hunter killed because they are monsters.  My friend has never killed anyone though, he just scavenges from corpses or animals.  He still has to hide or he will be hunted and killed on sight.  Kill, kill, kill.  Cancer is easier.”

I reach out and touch his hand, “I’m sure you are trying to help.  That’s a good thing.”  I’m still so new to this world but it’s clear that it’s no fairer or kinder than the one I’m used to.

He shakes his head slowly, “I have no idea what is even good some days, let alone trying to make it better.”  He takes a deep breath, I can almost hear him count to five, hold it, then breath out for five more.  I wonder who taught him the trick.

“Anyway, like I was trying to explain, ghouls aren’t the same as vampires.  They are better classified with other flesh eaters.  But unlike, say kitsune who can substitute animal hearts…”

We talked long into the night.  I was trying my best to learn the rules of this world and Jesse was a born teacher.  He didn’t just relay information he told its story.

\-----

The days passed quickly.  One afternoon maybe two weeks in, when we were totally out of milk and toothpaste and Jessie was away doing whatever he did, I ventured into the nearest town.  It was a 30 minute drive from the cabin.  It turns out we weren’t in some other dimension like I had originally feared, just backwoods northwest.  I used the rest of my money to buy groceries and some clothes.  Although the town was small it had a lived-in feel, like people made homes here not just houses.  I wondered if that was what had drawn Jesse to it.   Despite the town’s quaint charm I spent the whole trip on edge looking over my shoulder and worrying that someone would jump out at me.  

I got back to the house to find Jesse back and wearing a hole in the cabin floor.  When I opened the door he dropped the book in his hand and ran to me. “You’re back!  I thought you were gone.”  

“No just to get food and some clothes.  I’m not going to stay cooped up here forever you know.”

He looked at his shoes, “I didn’t mean it like that.  I’m sorry.  I worried…”

“I left a note!” 

“You did?”  His face took on a comical look of confusion.

“Yeah right on the table.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.  Why did you think that I’d leave without telling you anyway?”

He looked down again, “I was afraid you might be scared of me.  Or mad.  Or something.  Besides people leave all the time without saying goodby.  At the hospital…”  He trailed off.  He had a bad habit of almost saying something then stopping.

“Well this isn’t the hospital and I’m not planning on leaving today.  If I am planning on leaving I’ll let you know.  Which reminds me, we do need to talk about what the plan is.  I pretty much used the last of my money us today and I’m going to need things for the baby soon.  Also a…”

We found ourselves having a lot of conversations over the next few months.  Like how babies need a crib and clothes and diapers.  And how did he have so much money if he didn’t seem to have a job? (“I do work it’s just not the kind of job you report to the IRS” He retorted.)   

Also, if it would be safe to find a doctor because that’s important when you’re pregnant. (“Unless like she has two heads or something.  In that case maybe no doctor.”)  The next day he drove me to the nearest hospital.  It was a small affair, hardly more than an x-ray machine and a few beds but the doctor was a kind old woman and I got the distinct impression that she had treated more than one of Jesse's “friends.”

She said that we were surprisingly healthy, “considering the lack of prenatal care and stress.”  and told me to come back next month.  “She’s going to be a summer baby” she added, “maybe late June or early July.”  I did the math in my head, I had four months to figure this all out.  As we were leaving I tried to ask her about payment, hoping that she might let me make payments but she waved it away.  “You can pay me back one day, till then I don’t mind helping a traveler.”  I nod and find my eyes filling with tears that I blink away.

We talk about ourselves too.   Not often but between everything else things slip in.  Little pieces of information at first then bigger stories.  It takes time but Jessie tells me about being seven and finding out who he is.  (I want to kill the angel and hunters who hurt him, who first wanted to murder him then /just/ kidnap and do Chuck-only-knows-what to him.  It makes my heart hurt when he defends them.  Saying that they were right and he is dangerous.)  I tell him about being fifteen and going to live with my grandma because my mother died and my father is too buried in grief and work to raise me.

Somehow we find a rhythm that works.  One day I look around the cabin and realize that it feels like home.  When Jesse comes back from doing something for whoever he is helping today I tell him that I want to talk.

\-------

“I’m learning a lot from your books and I’ve been practicing warding and banishing rituals.”

He nods, “You draw a demon trap faster than anyone I know.”

I take a deep breath and push on, “That’s why I want to start helping you after the baby comes.”  I know that if I don’t spell it out he won’t really get it.  This is too important for there to be any misunderstanding.  “Jesse, I need to think about the future.  Not just for me but for her too.  I like it here, it feels safe and I’m learning but it can’t last forever.  When the baby comes she is going to need a home and there isn’t any point in trying to hide the truth from her.  If what you say is true she will probably be smarter than both of us and all these books together.  She is going to need a place to be safe and people who understand her.  Somehow I don’t see her working well in your average preschool.”  

His face crumples a little but Jesse keeps his tone carefully neutral, the way he always does when something scares him - and when he’s making sure he has a hold of himself, making sure not to let even a hint of his powers affect the world around him.  “So you will be going then?  I can give you the car…”

“That’s not what I’m saying Jesse.  I would like to stay here.  I’d like you to help me raise this child.  There is quite possibly no one else in the universe who can understand her better, and I feel safe around you.  But it’s your choice.  I understand you never signed up to be some kind of father to a child you only read about in an old prophesy or share your home with a crazy woman who just won’t leave.  You keep telling me that I’m free to go and you aren’t trying to keep me here but the reverse is true too. I can go, I’ll figure it out, it’s not on you.”  He is smiling now and I feel something warm swell up in my chest.

“And if you stay?”  His smile could light up a room and I realize I’m smiling back.

“I’d like to start helping you with your one man crusade.  I’m good with people and I have a trick or two of my own.  We start making the world just a little bit better together – all three of us.”

He nods.  I’m faintly amused that we just agreed to the equivalent of getting married (live together, raise a child together, and work together on the same highly dangerous and dubiously legal cause) and we’ve never even kissed.  I wonder if I’d like to kiss Jesse.  I tuck the thought (and the warm feeling in my stomach that it brings) away for a later time.  Right now I place my hand on my belly and feel my little one kick her heels in contentment.

Chapter 4 - Forty years later:

He really never expected to get this far.  At the age of seven, after the scary men tried to kill him, after they told him that he was a danger to his parents and everyone else he had just run.  He had no clue how to use these powers that he apparently had so he just wished as hard as he could that his parents forget him then he had wished that he was somewhere safe.  Because he was seven, and his best memory was the time mommy and daddy had taken him to the ocean he ended up on a beach.  Literally.  One moment he was in his bedroom crying and the next he was sitting on the sand and listening to the waves crash against the shore.  

After that he had coped with his life by focusing on one day at a time.  For a while he wandered, following anything that looked interesting.  A hunter, a school bus driver, some homeless people, a couple of friendly cows.  He would wish himself silent and invisible and trail behind them.  Then he found the first hospital.  

    He had played with his friends in the cancer ward (The parents thought he was the sibling of one of the patients, they were kind to him.  The staff though he was a Grim because when a child started talking about “the little boy with brown hair who wanted to play” they knew it was almost time. The children themselves understood that he was not like them and didn’t care.)  

    It was there that he learned that no matter how much you want a thing it doesn't mean you can have it.  When Death came and explained that he couldn’t just heal his friends (over really good pizza) he had listened and tried to understand.  When Chuck had shown up (Death had given him an earful apparently and told him to “fix his mess”) he had begun to grasp the enormity of the universe.  

    He decided that if he could change the world just by believing it to be true then he had better understand what was truth.  He learned that people are complicated.  He learned that good things are done for bad reasons and horrible things are done for good reasons.  He studied the different players in the supernatural game and watched from afar.  

    His social work / rescue business for non-humans just sortof happened.  He kept finding injustices that he couldn’t walk away from and tried to help.  But through it all he felt hollow.  He wanted more and that was the problem.  He knew better than anyone that just wanting something didn’t make it right, he was a half demon, he was a potential antichrist, he was dangerous, he could want but that didn’t mean he should have.

    Then Kelly came into his life.  Technically it was Amy first.  At the same time it had gone out on “angel radio” he had also heard.  Jesse had known about the prophecy for quite some time but he had never really been convinced that it referred to him.  When he felt the world shift and a new life blink into existence he knew better.  

    He spent four months fighting the urge to go to them.  He told himself that it was wrong, that it was dangerous, that he shouldn’t use his powers.  Afterward he always wondered if it was Chuck who sent him the flash.  It had been brief, just an image of Kelly, bloody and bruised, trying desperately to fight off three men as they dragged her away.

   The funny thing about crossroads is that you often don’t know that you are at one until long after you already have taken one road or the other.  When Jesse saved Kelly, brought them back to the cabin he hadn’t planned on his life changing forever.  But then they started talking.  Then Kelly chose to trust him even though she should have been running in horror (even some of the “monsters” were afraid of who he was.)  Then Kelly put her hand over her belly and look him in the eye and vowed to love the child.  

    It had been complicated at first, he had never really learned how to deal with people, let alone get to know someone as well as happens by necessity when you are living together.  Jesse smiled at the memory of how he had spluttered and freaked out when Kelly pointed out that babies need things like diapers and a crib.  Looking back he thinks they were both two afraid to think about the bond that was growing between them.  They were so busy fighting the universe that love snuck up on them. 

    When she had spelled it out “can we stay or not?” he had felt overwhelming hope.  Hope that there was a chance he could be allowed to have this.  That he could love someone, raise a child with her; that just maybe he was more than the demon who raped his mother, more than the sacrifice his mother made to give him life.  He had met God and the Devil, he had walked with angels and demons, but in that moment he was just a man in love - the purest human expression of the divine.   


    And they walked together in love for - Chuck how many years has it been now?  Jesse looked down at their fingers - still intertwined even with the tubes running from her arm to the IV bag, even with the oxygen mask over her face helping her breath, even with the sickness that was stealing the love of his life away from him one breath at a time, she still held onto his hand.      

    “It’s time Love.”  Her voice was so quiet he wanted to pretend he didn’t hear her.  To ignore the figure standing on the other side of her bed.  

    But he didn’t.  He loved her too much for that.

    “I know.”  He held her hand as tightly as he could without hurting her.  Felt her grip slowly relax.  He held her until her hand was limp.  He listened to the machines squawk and beep, telling everyone what he could see - a tall man in a long grey coat taking Kelly’s hand and leading her away.  The man turned once, looked over his shoulder and nodded at Jesse.  Jesse watched them go.

    After the last doctor left, after his daughter came and held him and they cried together (that they didn't share blood was a meaningless distinction), after nurses took the body (it wasn’t really Kelly anymore she was far, far away) he looked down at his hands again.  Empty for the first time in forty years.  He took one deep breath and then another.  He could arrange the world as he saw fit but all men knock at heaven’s gate unsure of their welcome.  He was half demon, half human - abomination and redemption wrapped together into one form.  He could arrange the world as he saw fit.  

    Maybe calling it “dying of a broken heart” is a bit melodramatic but end result was all the same.  It was time to find out what heaven would do with one antichrist who never quite reached his apocalyptic potential.

    He exhaled.  There was a man standing next to him.

    “Are you ready?” he asked.

    “Yes.”

    “Come with me.”

    “No pizza this time?”

    “I think you have better places to be.”  Jesse nodded and followed Death to whatever came next.


End file.
